Mike’s Search for Meaning
host: Michael Trugman
meaning of life, reframing situations, lucid dreaming metaphor, useful vs. true beliefs, parenting
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Transcript:
Mike
All right, Mr Sivers, welcome to Mike search for meaning. And maybe a better name for today’s episode will be Derek’s deconstruction of Meaning. And, you know, I think we saved something that I would love to start with in today’s conversation, which is that you’ve, for the better part of the last, I don’t know what you would call it 10, 15 years, you’ve really been deconstructing what meaning is. And as a matter of fact, moments before this episode started recording, you were just writing about a new chapter in your book that was deconstructing meaning. And I’m wondering if you could bring us into your current world right now. Like what were you deconstructing about meaning five minutes ago before we hit record here?
Derek Sivers
Sure. So, hey, audience. Mike and I were just talking before we hit record. I was like, “Mike, I love the name of your show. I love that it’s Mike’s search for meaning, and I love the fact that just minutes before we hit record, I was working on this chapter about lucid dreaming as a metaphor for removing and then putting meaning back into anything deliberately.” And then I was like, “Wait a second, why don’t we just hit record? What are we doing? Let’s hit record.” So hi, everyone. Hi, Mike, I just this morning woke up from a dream and thought lucid dreaming is actually a good metaphor for reframing. I mean, reframing itself as a metaphor for this idea of removing the old frame around a situation. We look at a situation in a certain way and we think, “Oh man, if my boss fires me, I’m screwed. I’ve been loyal to this company so at least they owe me some loyalty in return. And I’m so screwed if I get fired. That’s so scary.” You can remove that frame from that situation. Go, “Actually, wait a minute. My boss doesn’t have power over me unless we both agree that he does. Actually maybe we could reframe this situation as I am the valuable talent here, and my boss is merely the manager.”
Derek Sivers
Like a movie star’s agent. Like, let’s be clear who’s the real value here. The movie star can just get a new agent. Maybe I can just get a new boss. I’m the talent. And what is loyalty, anyway? That just means that I’ve either committed through an ongoing transactional reason to say that, “This company continues to be good for me.” Or has it been out of laziness and loyalty doesn’t deserve reciprocation because it’s just one way of seeing things. We could look at this whole thing very transactionally instead, and I won’t necessarily be screwed if I leave this job. In fact, it might be the best thing that happened to me to get out of this job where I’ve been stagnant. And I realized that’s all like lucid dreaming. Like, if you wake up from a dream it’s scary. And then you go, “Oh my God, I’m in bed at home, I’m safe.” And you realize it was all in your head. Those were just thoughts in your head. And we call it a dream.
Derek Sivers
But it’s kind of the same thing with thoughts that any way that we see a situation is just a certain way of seeing it, and it’s just all in our head, and then you wake up in the actual reality is very small. You know, the actual raw physical facts that are not filtered through your interpretation. It’s very small, and so then you can see it from scratch however you’d like. And in general we call that reframing. But I was just minutes ago thinking, “Oh, lucid dreaming is another nice metaphor for that.” Because I’ve never really done lucid dreaming, but from what I understand, it’s when you decide to steer your dreams, you realize that you’re dreaming and you think, “Hmm, in fact, okay, I’m going to turn myself into a tiger now, and I’m going to tear this whole place apart or I’m going to start flying now.” That reframing is kind of like that. So yeah, that’s what I was working on until minutes before we recorded, my alarm went off and said it was time to record with Mike, and I dashed over here to my recording booth and hello.
Mike
Nice, nice. Well, hello to you too. Yeah, I’ve never experienced lucid dreaming either, but it feels like a pretty easy analogy or metaphor to catch on to. And I don’t know if you’ve ever read or heard of “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz, but--
Derek Sivers
I read it 20 years ago. I don’t remember it at all. What do you remember?
Mike
Well, in the very beginning of the book, he talks about and you could call lucid dreaming, projection, maybe that we’re all like casting a dream onto our life, if you will. That whatever is happening in our head, our belief systems, our thoughts, the way that we see the world isn’t a view of the way the world is. It’s a view of how we are. And we are then projecting everything that we believe about the world onto the world. So in a way, it is like a dream. And a lot of us are living really bad dream. I mean, that’s what I remember from “The Four Agreements” the most, is that for many of us, we’re not really living empowering dreams, that we actually have the ability to shift it to empowering dreams. And there’s really a powerful story that I think, I think it was in your conversation, your most recent with Tim Ferriss, where you were talking about there was an accident, a car accident that you had when you were what was it, 18 years old, which feels really related. Actually I think this will drive the point home of what we’re talking about here, that you attributed a certain meaning and you carried that for a really long time. I’m wondering if you could tell that story to to shed light about, like, two different people’s worldviews, stories, beliefs about a situation.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I was 17 or 18 and not paying attention and blew through the intersection near my house that had a yield sign and smashed into another car. And you know, in the moment you’re just kind of concerned with yourself and the other driver for a second, as both cars were smashed up and they told me later that I broke the other driver’s spine and she’ll never walk again. And, you know, then just a month later, I went off to college and always just carried this with me like, “Damn, there’s somebody out there that can’t walk because of me. Whoa, that is so messed up.” And like 18 years later, at the age of 36 or something, I was back in my hometown. I thought, I’m going to go look her up. So good old fashioned yellow pages or white pages phone book. I found her, found her address, and I just went and knocked on the door in person, and she answered the door. I went, “Oh my God. Hi. My name is Derek. 18 years ago, I crashed into you.” And I started crying on her doorstep and she’s like, “Oh, sweetie, sweetie, come in. It’s fine.” And then she walked me into her living room, walked and it took me a second to realize went, oh.
Derek Sivers
And she said, “Yeah, I’m so sorry and you know, that accident and don’t worry, I’m fine.” And she said, “In fact, it was the best thing for me, you know, it helped me pay more attention to my health. And I’ve done better since. So no, don’t worry. You know, it’s nothing to get upset about.” And I forget exactly how it went. But she said something like besides, you know, I was eating too much or the fact that I was eating when I hit you helped me realize I had been a compulsive eater. And I said, “Well, wait, no, I hit you.” She said, “No, I hit you.” She said, “You were just going through the intersection. The fact that I was distracted with my eating meant I hit you.” And she goes, “Oh, sweet. This whole time you thought that you hit me.” And then she started crying and she goes, “It’s so stupid, these stories.” Yeah. So it’s just funny that we tell a story to ourself of the past. And this is the way things are, and this is what happened. But it might not even necessarily be true. None of us has complete perfect information. We don’t know all the details. We just see from our own two eyeballs and the stories that people tell us.
Mike
And that’s a really powerful one. And I think we all, from time to time, do this with minor transgressions or sometimes bigger ones too. Like one example that was coming up to me is a knee jerk reaction if someone cuts you off in traffic. Traffic seems to be one of the go to metaphors that people have. But yeah, there’s the story that we make up about someone who cuts us off in traffic isn’t typically, in my experience, they might be on their way to the hospital. They’re in a rush to do something that’s going to help another person. Our initial knee jerk reaction is, that person’s an asshole. Yeah, flip them off. And I can think of a million personal examples. I know for me, this is something that you don’t seem to struggle with at all, but I, for a lot of my life, have really cared a lot about what people think of me. And so I can be hyper vigilant about someone’s facial, you know, if their face is contorted a certain way, they might just be thinking, but I attribute lots of meaning to that. You know, they’re they’re judging me. They think I’m a loser, you know, that type of thing. So I want to get into there’s well--
Derek Sivers
Sorry to interrupt. The one that you just named about the traffic situation. You’re right. It is a common example we make. That it’s useful not true to think, “Well, actually, maybe that person is rushing a sick child to the hospital.” If you think that, it will have an effect on your psyche, it will make you go, “Hey, just relax. It’s fine. Everybody has their own problems in life. You know, maybe this person is having a personal emergency. Just relax. I’m fine. I’m not rushing to the hospital. Isn’t that nice?” It actually makes you relax. It fills your body with some whatever happy chemical, whatever that is. And it’s not necessarily true. The person probably does not have a sick child in the back that they’re rushing to the hospital, but it made you feel better just to think that way. And that’s a classic example of a useful, not true belief. And so sorry, I’m going to be talking about this subject a lot, not to promote my book because I don’t care if anybody buys it, but it’s just on my mind a lot because that’s the book I’m writing right now is called “Useful Not True” about this subject.
Mike
So one useful, not true belief that you carry is that-- well and I might be I might be misquoting you a little bit here, but that skepticism is your key to happiness. Is that correct?
Derek Sivers
Well, skepticism is the equivalent of waking up from a bad dream. It’s kind of going, “Whoa, hold on. None of that’s real.” You know, like the example we talked about, you’re having a scary dream. You suddenly wake up and you look around you, you’re like, “Oh, I’m just in bed. Here’s my bed. I’m in my house. Everything’s fine.” And you look at all of the things that happen in that scary dream as you realize they’re not real. So skepticism is just that it’s going, “Oh, actually, none of that’s real.” Just because somebody said something doesn’t mean it’s true. Just because I thought something doesn’t mean that’s the way things are. Just because something seems to be this way, that’s just one way of looking at it. So skepticism is waking up from a bad dream.
Mike
Where I was going to press a little bit on this, is like when I associate professions like lawyers or I mean, lawyers is probably the top one. But skepticism in a lot of ways can be used almost in a pejorative like a negative outlook. And so I’m wondering if you could zoom in a little. You started to explain that skepticism basically is not accepting as true. If we’re looking at the useful, not true frame, skepticism is not accepting as true but let’s call it a disempowering belief or a belief or a thought that is going to lead to a behavior or action where you are upset or angry. Right? So I wonder if you could talk us through how you look at healthy skepticism and like how do you end up arriving at beliefs or thoughts if you’re questioning everything all the time, you could start to get in this kind of circle where, “Well, nothing is true anyway so what does all this mean?” And I think that’s where useful comes in. But I know this is a word vomit of a question, but I think you might be picking up something that I’m putting down here.
Derek Sivers
Of course. I’m just curious. I’ve never heard skepticism mentioned in a negative way. And you briefly said something about lawyers. So how about I’ll give you mine if you give me yours. What’s your take on skepticism?
Mike
Let me push a little bit here. So sometimes someone is rigidified in their worldview. And let’s just say I come across with, oh, this thing, you know, you’re having a hard time losing weight. I have some useful advice for you about how you can lose weight, that a skeptic might just push that away. And maybe I’m not using skepticism in the way that you would.
Mike
There’s, like, a guardedness that I associate with skepticism around. Let me give a more concrete example, because this is truly personal. So I, for the better part of the last seven years, have had at times debilitating back pain like barely can get out of bed, back pain, and at times not in a lot of pain. But it is always been on my mind until - and it’s still not fully true to a certain extent. But until about a year ago, where I read this book called “Healing Back Pain”, and it posits that I’m paraphrasing a lot here, but that it’s not actually a herniated disc that’s causing the issue or a structural issue. It is an emotional issue. I have repressed anger. I have repressed emotions. I know a lot of skeptical people in my life who read that and go, “That is a load of shit.” And I think I’m already starting to answer the question a little bit, but like, they’re already really believing in the medical system of a doctor wouldn’t say that, a doctor didn’t study that in school. That sounds like some voodoo woowoo nonsense, that type of thing. So, like, I have explained my success with reading that book, a lot of people that I’ve shared that with have been resistant and highly skeptical. Where I go, “It feels pretty useful, even if it’s not true. What if you just imagined that your anger is everything that’s causing your back pain? It’s made an immense difference in my life. Well, what is there to lose?” You know. So does that give a better foundation?
Derek Sivers
I see.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, that’s a beautiful example, because you’re right, that focuses on something being useful, whether or not it’s true. Asking if it’s true or not is not the right question. The question is, is it useful or not? Because to me, this is like some kind of meta skepticism to say, “What the fuck? Nothing’s necessarily true or not anyway. There are some physical facts. Okay, we know you have a spine. We know that and we know that you have been feeling that it hurts. We know that. But maybe it is in your mind.” Like the person who says, “No, that’s definitely not true.” That’s assuming something else. They’re kind of, you know, saying that it’s definitely not. So yeah, I think it’s beautiful to just notice what works and if believing this works for you. And if that made the pain go away, well then there you go. That’s that. Yes, that’s a beautiful example. It’s kind of what I’m on about, that’s what I’m talking about with this subject, is choosing to believe something because it’s working. And I currently don’t have a subtitle for the book, and I probably won’t, but if I did.
Derek Sivers
I was thinking about something like “As if motivation matters”. Because it does, and of course, like we’re human. So there are some beliefs that motivate you to believe, you know, and motivation can be like the stressing out in traffic example. Motivation can be, “It motivates me to relax. You know, it affects me. It makes me go mhm, it makes me happier or believing I have a long way to go makes me work harder.” Or let’s keep using traffic. Why not? Believing that if I let my attention up for a single second, I might die. That can help keep you very alert and awake and a very safe driver. Or if I follow too closely to another car, or if I’m reckless or impatient, I might die. This might make you a safer driver to believe that even though somebody could disprove or go, “Oh, you know, the odds of that happening or that’s not true.” It’s like, well, believing this works for me. It makes me a better driver. And ultimately, nothing in the mind is true anyway. And if thinking these thoughts makes my actions better. Well then I’ll think these thoughts.
Mike
So this is something that’s clicking for me as we’re speaking here. That useful and true and belief systems are in a lot of ways they are-- I don’t know if it would be upstream or downstream. I get this wrong, but it starts with identity seems to be the the core driver where beliefs might come from. Meaning asking yourself what type of person do I want to be seems to be like the foundation for what type of beliefs am I going to establish from there? Does that resonate? Is that useful?
Derek Sivers
Well, maybe that works for you. See, even the whole sorry, like the what kind of person do I want to be. That’s kind of a story that you can tell yourself that again, if maybe that works for you. Maybe you say like, “But I’m a noble person that does the right thing and even when tempted with the wrong thing, that would have been selfish and greedy. I choose to do the selfless right thing.” And if telling yourself that story becomes like a good rule of thumb that you keep with you, maybe self-identity is a shortcut. It’s a rule of thumb that you could just quickly make decisions on which action is the right thing to do because I’m this kind of person. And if you’ve decided in advance I’m this kind of person that does the right thing, I’m the good guy, then that can help you make good decisions. But what’s fascinating is to realize that’s also not true. It’s just a story you’re telling yourself. But that’s okay.
Mike
Yeah. Well, what I was getting at is the question useful for who? It feels like a pretty big one. You know.
Derek Sivers
Oooh. Ooh, Mike. Good one.
Mike
What’s cooking there?
Derek Sivers
Let’s cook in there. Useful for who is a beautiful, succinct way to put it. Hey, if there’s a chapter in my new book called “Useful for who?” That’s thanks to Mike, everyone. Because ever since I started writing this book, people have been asking me, “But what about psychopaths?”
Mike
I’ve heard you speak about this a bunch, and I’m surprised at-- well, and please share for my audience, too. I’m surprised that’s what-- I mean in some ways, it’s it’s a good stand in for, “Is this going to be weaponized by people?” But I’ve been surprised that that’s one of the spots that people go to of like, “What if a psychopath listens to my podcast and decides to use this for really evil?” But. Yeah. Sorry to cut you off. Go ahead.
Derek Sivers
No, I suspect it’s people who are addicted to media and addicted to outrage at people whose beliefs they think are crazy or dangerous. Usually political things. And not just, you know, government officials, but the whole social, civil war, whatever thing where people think that the other people on the other side are crazy or dangerous. And I think if you’re in that world too much, which I understand is addictive because the media industry spends billions to get you addicted to it. Then you could start to see everything through that lens. And so you hear “Useful Not True”. And you think, “Yeah, but what about the people that lie about the election results. That’s useful for them to believe. What about people that are racist and believe that it’s useful for them to believe that these people are subhuman and worthy of extermination? What about that? Huh?” So I love the way that you just succinctly said useful for who. That’s a wonderful question to ask.
Mike
Yeah, and I think it could also be helpful to and I believe this is how your book is going to start for you to just say what you mean when you say useful, right. I think everyone can have their own version of it. But when you say useful, what do you mean? How do you define it?
Derek Sivers
Whatever helps you do what you need to do. Be who you want to be or feel at peace. That’s the best definition I’ve got for now. More interesting is my definition of true. Which before I began - I mean, the title is “Useful Not True”. So I had to think, “Well, what is true?” And to me true is a shortcut for saying absolutely, objectively, necessarily, empirically observably true. Meaning true for everyone, everywhere always. And it’s not only in the mind. It’s a really, really, really limited definition of true. And that’s on purpose, because whatever you consider to be true is done. It’s closed. It’s a fact, and that’s that. It’s not negotiable. So the less you have defined as true, the better, because then everything else is available for reframing. Available for rethinking, for questioning. It’s open to reconsideration. And because I think reframing is so powerful and so important, it’s important to limit that definition of actually true. So to me it’s the easy shortcut is to say it’s just the concrete facts. Not interpretations or thoughts. So in the case of somebody complaining about election results, it’s saying, “No. It’s easy to count exactly how many people actually voted and for who. That’s that. Your interpretation of this thing doesn’t matter.” In the issue of racism it’s like, “No, that’s another human being. Same as you. The fact that they look different than you does not mean that they are lesser or greater. That’s your interpretation. It’s just another human being. They could say the same things about you.” So these are the actual facts, and it’s stripping away all interpretation, all meaning, all projected values and stories and all that stuff, and just looking at the few observable, empirical, absolute, concrete facts.
Mike
Well, I would argue that it’s not useful for, you know, whatever someone is strawmanning as, well what if someone racist thinks it’s useful. Like I would just argue that it’s not useful and depends what that person is looking for in their life. But I would argue that person is probably not very happy or creating the life that they deeply actually want inside. They’re reacting on some limited story. And I think I might be putting words into your mouth, but there’s some sort of intentionality, like, I don’t think people-- and maybe this is my Jekyll and Hyde. I think people are inherently good, shining through here, which seems like something that you share. But I don’t think that at our core we believe that thing. I think that’s wounding or patterning conditioning that probably contributes to that. Whereas where we adopt a useful belief, it’s somehow tied to the betterment, maybe for us, but certainly to the betterment of other people, probably too. That feels kind of core to our happiness, actually.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. This is going to be a bit of a problem for me in writing this book that I don’t make a big separation between useful for me and useful for others. Like I don’t see a big difference between me and others. So there have been many situations in life where people think I’m behaving strangely, but to me it’s completely rational. Because I value others as as much as I value myself. So something that people think I’m weird for is that when I sold my company years ago for $22 million, that I just gave it all away, and it’s because I just looked at the situation. I thought, “Well, there’s nothing I want to buy. I’ve already got a few million dollars saved up because the business has been profitable for ten years, and I was the sole owner. And so this $22 million, I’m not going to do anything with it. It’s just going to sit there. Like the gold in the mountain that the dragon is just sleeping on, that the people in the village could really use it.” And so I thought, “Yeah, who am I to just be the dragon sleeping on my gold, you know, mine mine for what? In fact, as if motivation matters, that might make me do some stupid things. Like buy stupid things I don’t need because money has that effect on you of like, burns a hole in your pocket, you know?” So I just objectively looked at the situation.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, I think other people need it more than me. And so before the deal was done, I restructured it. So I transferred my company into a charitable trust. And then the purchasing company bought it from the trust, not from me. So the $22 million never touched my hands. Oh, there. Okay. That feels better. And it’s nicer to know that it’s just all going to charity to people who actually need it to live, to survive, to not die. Instead of me, you know, having a ten bedroom house or three cars or whatever. It just seemed to me to be objectively better that people not die instead of I have extra comfort that I don’t need. But see maybe that’s a problem. Maybe it’s a problem that I’m the person writing this book. Well, to me that’s just an obvious assumption. Whereas maybe some people that are saying, “Yeah, what about psychopaths? They need this to be addressed.” Because they feel that most people will screw over everybody and destroy the whole world if it benefits them. Whereas I have a hard time thinking that way.
Mike
Well, this is really, really interesting because I think there’s a part of a lot of different people that resonates with what you did with CD Baby. I think there’s definitely a part of me that would want to donate a lot of it to charity and knows I don’t actually need all that money. I don’t need to stack it like gold under my bed or, you know, whatever the the analogy you used was, I think a lot of people resonate with that. And in some ways you’re an edge case. But in some ways and I also-- this was something I thought could be interesting for you to talk about, that you are like in a lot of ways you live into certain extremes or what people would categorize as extremes. But you also are-- like from what I could tell you love people, that you really love people. And so that actually to me makes you like qualified to write the book. Maybe you think differently, but I think that you like you get to the core of people.
Mike
Maybe not everyone in the world would give all their money away, but we all get something out of doing something of service or giving money or being charitable. You know, like we were talking right before I hit record here, that every episode I donate to and raise awareness for an organization that you’d select or that you know, the other 115 guests of the show, they’ve selected other organizations. And you could argue that it’s altruistic and really generous and kind of me, but I get something out of that. Like it casts a vote for the type of person that I want to be, which is what I was getting to with the identity question before. Like I set up, a lot of my belief systems are empowering me to step into, like, who does Mike Trugman want to be and how can I how can I create that now? You know. So, anyway, that’s maybe just me saying, Derek, you are one of the strongest candidates I know to write this book.
Derek Sivers
Well, except that I can’t address the psychopath thing, that a lot of people want addressed. Because I just can’t fathom that mindset, or I can’t logic myself out of it because I’m not in it. You know.
Mike
I’ve liked your other answers. You know, like teaching someone to drive you can use a car, it’s not the person that’s teaching someone to drive’s responsibility how every single person in the entire world decides to use a car, and actually you have a pretty, it seems, a pretty self-selected audience of people. Like I read through the comments of people who read your blog posts, and there’s some really kind people that I don’t know if I’ve ever read one comment on your stuff that’s like, “Expected better of you, Derek, or this is lazy or, you know.”
Derek Sivers
There are some of those, but the kind critiques, the ones are just like, “You know, you lost me with this one.” Actually, you know what? That actually happened just a few weeks ago. I had what to me felt like a beautiful metaphor for beliefs and meanings. Speaking of Mike’s search, where I thought about how artificial intelligence might filter the news for us, and if we had an AI assistant that knows us so well. That you share your thoughts and feelings into it, and it knows what you need, then it would selectively only show you the news of the world that would be what you needed to believe, to help create the motivation inside you to do what you need to do, or be who you want to be or feel at peace. And I thought, “Oh yeah, that’s a great metaphor.” So I wrote a cute little story, just like 20 sentences, posted it on my blog, and all of the comments were just like, “You know, artificial intelligence is going to get me fired. You know, it’s kind of messed up. You know, the big corporate tech, you know, they’re snooping into our lives.” I was like, “It’s a metaphor. You know, this is not about AI.” I was like, okay, after about 20 comments, we’re talking about big tech. And I went, “All right, hold on.” That was good feedback. My metaphor was too distracting. So that afternoon, I wrote up a different example about the magic mirror in Harry Potter, where everybody that looks into the mirror sees their greatest desire.
Derek Sivers
It’s like Harry sees what he wants to see. Dumbledore sees what he wants to see. Ron sees himself as the head of the Quidditch team or whatever. They don’t need to argue. Ron’s not going to say, “No, it’s not Harry. I don’t see your parents. That mirrors showing me the head of the Quidditch team.” Because they understand, “Oh, it’s a magic mirror. It shows us what we need to see.” And I said, so basically that’s life. That’s your perception. You see what you need to see in any given situation. If you seem to have a need to be outraged today, you will look at the news and find a reason to get outraged. If you want to not be outraged today, and if you want to improve your actions today, well then you’ll search for something else. You’ll find different sources of inputs, or podcasts or books that give you the empowering thoughts that you want. The problem is in the real world is that people argue then about, “That’s not true. The world is fucked up. It’s a nasty, evil place.” And somebody say, “No, that’s not true. You know, the world is inherently a good place and people are actually good people.” No, that’s wrong because we don’t realize we’re looking in a magic mirror that just shows us what we need to see. Oh, sorry you were talking about the comments on my blog. So yeah, sometimes I do get comments from people that nicely tell me that I’ve missed the mark. I do have a theory, though, about why I don’t get nasty comments on my blog.
Mike
Please do tell.
Derek Sivers
I think in other social media platforms, people are showboating a bit when they leave nasty comments. It’s a bit like the class clown that says a nasty bit of heckling to the teacher in order to kind of like get the other students to, you know, “Hey, look at me. That was a good one, right? You heard what I said, right?” I think people are showboating because it’s a public platform and they’re trying to make themselves like a public reputation, “Hey look at me. Look at what I just said. Did you get that zinger I just said?” Or, “Hey, we’re on a public platform here, and you just said that this politician is good. Yeah, well, I can’t let that stand because that politician is bad. I need to correct what’s wrong here.” So I think people are showboating because it’s very public. Whereas like my personal blog, it’s just my blog. You’re not building up your social media profile on my blog. And so that’s why I seriously get like one nasty comment a year around on average. And because it’s my blog, I delete it because I’m like, “In the same way that I won’t let you graffiti my bedroom. You know, it’s my house.” Put graffiti on the public wall, there’s nothing I can do about that. But this is my bedroom. So, yeah, but that’s why I think people are so nice, is because there’s no incentive to be nasty.
Mike
Yeah. Well, I thought a fun thing that we could do. And, you know, feel free to bat this away if it doesn’t feel like it’s engaging. Like, I really want this conversation to be both useful for you and useful for the listener. As you are parsing through your imminent book “Useful Not True”. I thought a fun thing that we could do, and I’ve heard you talk a little bit about the projections we put on to say, money, religion. We could do parenting, and I thought it would be fun to just go through if we take money, for example, some of the accepted and probably not useful beliefs that we might have about. And I know that we’re talking about a global population maybe. But it seems somewhat universal that there are disempowering beliefs that we have about money that we take as true. And if we were to break that down into what’s useful, like, you just strike me as someone who has useful maybe not true, but certainly useful views about different areas of your life. And the reason that I thought now is a good time to segue into this, is because you’re very intentional about not using social media. You know that’s a useful way to engage with the type of people that you want to engage with, to not be on Twitter or Instagram, where there’s more likely to be inflammatory response. You know. So how how does that sound to you?
Derek Sivers
Great.
Mike
So money you know, I think money is an interesting one to start because a lot of us are unconsciously guided by everything, we say we’re doing a lot of the things we do for money, “I can’t leave my job. I need to make the money.” Right. And here’s a man who’s sitting across from me, who made a good amount of money selling a company and gave it all away. And seems to be a pretty happy man toO. What are your useful and not true beliefs about money?
Derek Sivers
Let me just quickly preface to say, if anything I’m going to say next sounds weird. You might have believed the same thing if you were in my situation, which is, straight out of high school. No, no, sorry. Let me back up even before that, at the age of 14, I decided I wanted to be a musician. I loved playing music so much. I was like, this is it. This is what I want to do. And I knew that I was never going to have a job. I was never going to have a salary. I was never going to have insurance or a pension or security. I knew that I was choosing a life of probably living hand to mouth, doing gigs for money to pay this month’s rent. And I set out to do that, and I thought it was kind of a cool challenge, you know, like the way that somebody decides to go camping or you decide to go on a week long hike in the forest with nothing but what’s in your backpack. It’s a challenge you set out for yourself, and it kind of feels cool. Let me see if I can do this. And then I moved to Boston, and within a year I was hired by a circus as the ringleader, MC, musician of the circus.
Derek Sivers
And for example, my boss at the circus would never spend more than $1,000 on a car. He just had a rule for himself, “I’ll never spend more than $1,000. I’m going to only drive cars that people have given up on, and then I’ll drive it for the last year of its life, because people usually give up on it a little too early when they think it’s going to die.” He said, “I’m okay with that. I’ll spend $1,000, buy somebody’s piece of junk, drive it for the last year or two until it actually dies. And sometimes it ends up being 3 or 4 or 5 years. And then when it actually dies for real, I give up and I’ll spend another $1,000 to buy another discarded car.” And that was my boss. And actually, it was a married couple that was running the circus, and they lived for free in the upstairs attic of an arts center, because they had done some work for the arts. And the patron of the arts that owned the museum just liked them and liked what they were doing for the community. So they said, “You know what? You two can live upstairs for free.” So they were living rent free, running this circus, spending $1,000 on a car.
Derek Sivers
And then I met Camille, the face painter. Camille and I fell head over heels in love. Her parents lived in a log cabin in the woods, that they had mostly built themselves. And they got the land for just a few thousand dollars because it was in the middle of nowhere and built the house themselves. And her parents never did have a job. Her mom did odd jobs around town for people. Her dad was a part time photographer for the local town newspaper, but that’s it. So they lived on like a couple thousand dollars a month, maybe for jobs here and there. And that’s how they had their house and put their daughter through college, partially through scholarships and whatnot. And these are the people that I was around for ten years in the circus. And I guess that just continued to shape how I saw the world. That you can live on just a few thousand dollars a year, you can find people that have extra space that are happy to let you live there. You can find discarded cars, and this is a fine way to live. And anything on top of that is just gravy, luxury, icing, whatever you want to call it. So that was just how I saw the world.
Derek Sivers
And when somebody asked how I got rich and they really wanted a real answer. I said, okay here’s how I did it. I found three roommates in New York City. We rented a floor of a house in Astoria, Queens, which was a cheap neighborhood at the time. Our rent was $1,000 a month, but we split it three ways. So $333 a month. And I never, ever took a taxi. I never ate out. I just made peanut butter sandwiches for myself. But yet I had a salaried job that was paying $20,000 a year. So after two years of doing some gigs with the circus and the job that I had for two years, I had saved up $12,000. And that’s when I realized I could quit my job, because that $12,000 is enough to live on, and I could just get a few gigs a month as a musician. I could pay my $333 a month rent, my $80 utilities, and what was I spending in food? Maybe, I don’t know $400 a month or something like that. And that’s it. So ever since then, I’ve been financially free and they’re like, “Yeah, but when did you get rich?” I said, “I just told you, like, that’s it, that ever since then, I’ve been financially free.”
Derek Sivers
And I’ve never done anything for the money since then because knowing I could live on just a couple thousand dollars a month, meant I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do. I only took gigs I wanted that sounded like, “Ooh, that’d be fun. Sure, I’ll do that. I mean, you’ll pay me, right? Okay, great. You’ll pay me. Okay, fine $600. Okay, great. But, yeah, that sounds like a fun gig. Let’s do it.” I only took jobs I wanted to, and I consider myself rich ever since then. But maybe it’s just the environment I was in, you know. It would be different if I grew up in Beverly Hills, surrounded by people in $10 million mansions, and I only had a $2 million mansion, I might feel intense jealousy, and I might have been surrounded by people with a value system telling me that, I’m nothing until I hit 10 million and I might have been affected by that, but instead I was surrounded by people that were living hand to mouth, juggling and doing magic tricks for money, making kids happy and painting faces and taking photographs for a few hundred dollars to pay their living expenses. So, yeah. Does that help?
Mike
Yeah. And I’m going to press on at least one thing and we’ll see there’s probably more. What did you find enticing about that lifestyle? So when you were in that industry for ten years, right. I think a lot of people could tell that same story almost as a prerequisite of, “You know, I was hustling, I was struggling, I was living in a this little tiny apartment in Queens for $333 a month, paying my dues.” But you’re actually saying it in a way that’s like honoring that. That’s when I realized I was rich and and maybe when you were saying rich, I’ll ask a technical question, then continue on the bigger question. When you said rich, were you talking about an internal feeling of “I felt rich and like my relationship with money was excellent.” Or that someone would look at your bank account and go, yeah.
Derek Sivers
Oh good question. I don’t care what other people think. So, no, I mean, by my own definition, I had more than I needed. I had a comfortable stockpile of cash that I could live on for a whole year, even if in some extreme situation, I didn’t have a single gig. Nobody wanted any of my skills for anything for a whole year. I still could live. That to me is rich.
Mike
Yeah. And I’m guessing that as a circus performer, you were really enjoying what you were doing. There might be more, I want to parse through, what was it about that period of your life that helped you have a more empowering relationship with money, whereas, lots of people who live in Astoria now, I’m in the New York City area. So people in New York City area that make way more, even if you adjust for inflation. And, you know, today’s times and I could raise my hand too, like, I’ve been miserable in my life making six figures, thinking that I needed to make more money. So if you were to break down through, like, what were you drawn to in that time of your life where you realized this is what it means to me to be rich, don’t care what other people think, and how would you help someone create that if they’re kind of stuck in the need to just make more money and then I’ll feel rich, wealthy, successful, you know, fill in the blank.
Derek Sivers
Okay, I’m going to wing it with a new comparison I’ve never thought of before that when you think of the word strong or strength. You think of the ability to do things. If you think I’m strong, it means, I could grab that bar or a rope and pull myself up. I can lift heavy things off the ground. I can push things away from me. I can jump high. You know, my muscles are strong, I am strong. It’s about your ability to do things. You’re empowered. You have the power to do things. So to me the ability to be happy and productive and thrive, let’s just say thrive. Flourish and thrive with only a $2,000 in a month is strength. Like the way that somebody who knows that they can jump into the ocean with nothing but a little swimsuit on and swim from here to that island over there in the ocean, that’s strength. That’s a great feeling to know that you can do that. Let’s go to the camping example again, to know that I could stick some things into a backpack and walk into that forest and not come back for a week. And still be flourishing and healthy and fine and live that’s strength. So to me, the ability to live on less is a great power. It’s an ideal that we should shoot for the way that we want to be strong, the way that we want to be capable in the world, to be able to live on less is a wonderful ideal and it’s a thing to shoot for.
Derek Sivers
So that’s what I was doing ever since I was a teenager is knowing, all right, I want to be a musician. That means I won’t have much money. But I’m going to constantly find ways to flourish despite not having a lot of money. That means I will never acclimate myself to comfort. I will never take taxis. I will wait an hour for the subway to come, for the N train to take me back to Astoria, and I’ll just bring a book. So instead of spending $30 on a taxi, I will bring a book with me and have the patience to wait an hour. There, I’ve just made a strength. You know, instead of the way that somebody camping would say, “I don’t need a soft, cushiony queen bed with a downy mattress or a downy quilt. I’m okay just having a sleeping bag and an air mattress, that’s enough for me.” So I think that’s my relationship to money, is that it’s not about getting more and more and more. It’s about strengthening yourself to be happy with less so that if you get more, it’s just an extra bonus.
Mike
So I will admit I haven’t read the full book. I haven’t read “How to Live”, I’ve read chapters, and if my memory serves me correctly, one of the chapters is “Get Rich”. Is that right?
Mike
I haven’t read the chapter, so I’m genuinely curious. So we’ve just had a really meaningful conversation about-- and I’m super, this is so alluring to me. And I love your strength analogy that it demonstrates to me that my happiness, my fulfillment in my life is not contingent upon some external result, that it’s actually a choice that I can make now. And if I’m willing to give up a certain number of creature comforts to make that happen, I know that basically you can’t take it from me, right?
Derek Sivers
Yes.
Derek Sivers
Right, right, right. Oh which Mike, I mean, the word security is an interesting one. When I would hear people say, “I need six figures or I need $1 million because I want security.” And that’s not security. Security is like the strength example. It’s knowing that you don’t need it because nobody can take it away. Like the ability to not need $1 million it is strength. To me, needing $1 million is a massive weakness. That’s like a fatal flaw to need $1 million. That is such a weakness. You’ve got you’ve got to do some serious work on yourself if you think you need $1 million. That’s like, you know, finding out that you’re unable to get up out of a chair. You need to work on that. So, yeah, I love the way-- that was beautiful. You just said that they can’t take it away from you. That is such a great measure.
Mike
Well, then what’s what’s the chapter?
Derek Sivers
Oh, the chapter and get rich. Okay, well, I mean, look for context. I actually kind of wish that I had a-- I don’t have a copy of “How to Live” and my only copy I had of that book I gave to a friend, and now I have none. They’re all in a warehouse in North Carolina.
Mike
If it’s helpful you can pull it out. You know, we can can edit out whatever amount of time it takes for you to pull it up on your screen.
Derek Sivers
No, it’s fine. I’ll see what I can remember. The point is. Of the book is that every chapter in that book “How to Live” is taking one way of looking at the world and taking it to an extreme to see what happens if you take that all away. And then for amusement, arguing that this is in fact the correct answer and this is the way to live. And then the next chapter takes a different view to an extreme and argues that, no, in fact, this is the right answer. And it’s a little bit of a mockery of the self-help industry that does that already in different books. And I thought, wouldn’t it be beautifully head spinning to have it in one book that argues these different ways. Because that’s kind of how my head works, I can argue in favour or against each of the different ways to live. Okay, so the “Get Rich” one. The argument is that money is ultimately just a neutral transfer of value, meaning that if somebody finds something valuable to them, they will transfer money to the person that will give them value in return. So by focusing on getting rich, you’re actually generously focusing on being valuable to the world. It’s not about taking, it’s about how can I be of value to the world. And money is just a neutral measure that you are being valuable to the world, so it just stacks up, just take that argument to its logical extreme.
Derek Sivers
And that’s what the “Get Rich” chapter was. Which notice then that, that everything we were just saying right before then, I mean you summed it up beautifully when you said, that they can’t take it away from you. I’m not arguing that money is evil or that we should not make money. I’m just saying you shouldn’t need it. You shouldn’t require that you are only happy if you have $1 million, or you’re only happy if you have a spacious four bedroom suite in central Manhattan with the taxis at your beck and call and catered meals at all times. You know, if that’s the only way you’ll be happy that’s a massive weakness, because it makes you very fragile. The world can take that away from you like that. Some kind of quick confiscation of your assets by a war breaks out or a hacker breaks into your account and you are fragile if you’re screwed without that money. So to me, that’s a personal challenge that you should take upon yourself to be okay no matter what happens. And focus on what they can’t take away from you.
Mike
Something that’s been personally useful for me. It’s funny, like I’ve put money on this shrine in some ways. That money is going to give me the sense of security. I’ve externalized what we’ve been talking about the thing that can’t be taken from us. I’ve made external security, success, belonging. A big piece of work for me also has been to not just outright reject money, and which is this really interesting kind of overlap for me is that I’m putting a lot of good things onto money, but also putting a lot of rejecting that it is evil. That would make me greedy and selfish and that those are, you know, those are bad things to be greedy and selfish and yeah, I love the way that you’re describing money. As really just a neutral exchange of energy. And this goes back to what we’ve been talking about really for the whole first hour so far. We’re making up the meaning of everything as it happens. So as someone who doesn’t put a lot, you don’t look at money right now I don’t think as an important way to gauge the value exchange of what you’re creating in the world. What are some ways that you look at or track the way that you’re having a good value exchange because you’re such a prolific creator, writer, you show up really reliably for-- I’m grateful that you’re doing it for my show right now. And you’ve been on tons of podcasts. Like you show up, you show up fully. So like, how do you gauge the value exchange if it’s not through money in your life? Or what’s a fair exchange? Like when people.
Derek Sivers
I like when people tell me that something I’ve written or made has really helped them. That’s a huge joy. I selfishly like doing podcasts like this, because you ask me questions that I hadn’t considered, or you give some kind of insight in your question. Like you said a couple things today that I can’t wait to get a recording and then a transcript of this conversation because I’m like, “Oh, what was that thing that Mike said, oh, right. Can’t take it away from you.” Or, “What was that other thing Mike said, oh, useful for who? God, that was really good.” You know, I get a lot out of these personally. They spark a lot of ideas for me. You put me on the spot, and I used to actually prepare for podcasts. But now I just kind of jump in with, you know, live improv. And so you toss an idea my way and I go, “Oh, I’m on the spot. Let me not give a knee jerk answer. That’s some bullshit that I thought of years ago. Let me actually think of this anew right now, in the moment, while people are waiting. What does money mean to me? Quickly, think about this.” You know, it’s great exercise, it’s a great challenge. These things to me, are a bigger joy. I’m also still mostly driven by the intrinsic motivation of let me see if I can do this thing. It just becomes an interesting puzzle you set out for yourself. Like somebody learning a foreign language, they want to learn Spanish and they start to think, “I think I want to learn enough Spanish that I could live in Mexico speaking only Spanish. And I’m going to make that a challenge for myself.”
Derek Sivers
And then once that challenge excites you. It becomes this feeling of like, “Let’s see if I can do this.” Or “I want to challenge myself to do this.” Or even somebody who wants to run a marathon, like, okay, I’m going to work up to this. I want to see if I can do this. We love having a challenge. We love having a project. In fact, when our life is not challenging, we create challenges with video games. People whose lives are just completely easy just sit at home and they have a screen with a video game that’s laying challenges in front of them. You know, shoot all the enemies or jump over that bridge or, you know, whatever the challenges that video games give you. It’s a human desire I think for a challenge. We get off on the progress, on the feeling of progress. So, I’m way more driven by that than the money itself. I really at this point, I do give away a lot that I could charge for and it’s just because this is how I’m measuring value for myself. And in many ways, I’d rather people just keep the money. Like, don’t give it to me. I don’t need any more money. I’m fine. You keep it for yourself. Use it for something.
Mike
It’s interesting that you brought up challenge because just a few hours ago, earlier today, I am a coach. I’m really growing my coaching practice out right now, and I launched a 50 coaching session challenge on LinkedIn. And it’ll go elsewhere, but like one thing that you could say I would hope to get out of this is that I’ll have more clients. But there’s something just really thrilling about giving myself the challenge of I’m going to be having 50 coaching conversations with people.
Mike
You know, like I’m going to be reliably showing up 50 times to help someone ostensibly improve their life in some way, like have a more useful, not true, empowering beliefs in their life. And yeah, I love the way that you’re able to, even though there’s a part of me that wants to kind of drill in and get really practical with you about, well, you know, how how did you set your life up so that you can, what are your monthly or weekly expenditures? How much do you need to have saved away to make that happen?
Derek Sivers
Nice.
Derek Sivers
Right. I wouldn’t know the answer to that, unfortunately. I wish I did. The problem is, I haven’t had regularity in my life in a while. I was bopping around the earth a lot. You know. What the hell? I’ll name a couple specifics. I decided in 2010 I wanted to move to Singapore because actually, at the time, I wanted to become fluent in Chinese, and Singapore seemed like a good place where I could have-- well, I had just gotten married, and so I wanted to move to China. We tried that for a week. She hated China. So Singapore became our compromise, where it’s like she could have the comforts of living in English, but yet Chinese. Mandarin is a strong second language there. We could both live there. Okay, so I ended up falling in love with Singapore. But in order to become a legal resident of Singapore, I had to basically loan the Singapore government $5 million for a few years, in order to get permanent resident status that I wanted without having to get a job for a Singapore company. So money wise and then when I left Singapore, I got it back. But then I did a similar thing to move to New Zealand. And so I’ve actually been kind of longing for, like, wouldn’t it be nice to just have a steady life for a while where I can know what my annual expenses are. Because I’ve had so much of this, like bopping around, moving, lending a government money to let me stay there. Now I get it back. Now I need to buy a house. Now I decided I don’t want to. Now I’m selling that house and now I’m renting. And, yeah, I haven’t had steady finances in a while. I wish I knew my monthly expenses.
Mike
And yet here you are having, you know, calmly reflecting on this and not up in arms about about that right.
Derek Sivers
Yeah, there is a-- that to me is like another definition of rich. Is knowing you’ll be fine no matter what, you know. Yes, that can come through this stoic, kind of toughen yourself thing. But there’s this other way where it’s like, for example, I’ve never had insurance my whole life. Never, never, never. I’ve don’t have home insurance. I don’t have health insurance because I saved up enough that I know that no matter what happens, I’ll be fine. That’s a beautiful, amazing feeling of security. To me is like, I think maybe that’s my definition of mega-rich. It’s like, I’m fine no matter what. I could get some kind of crazy brain cancer and I’ll be fine. It’s a beautiful feeling. But on the other hand, I’m also totally okay with dying. I actually have had cancer like four times in the last 4 or 5 years. And somebody was like, “Oh my God, oh my God, you must be so upset.” I’m like, “No, I mean, if I die, that’s fine, I don’t care. It’s all right.” And that’s sincere, you know, I mean, I think there would be a scary moment. I would probably cry a lot if it was just like, oh, my God, I’m probably not going to live another month. I’d be scared not sad. But I mean, ultimately I’m okay with that. And so if you’re okay with that, then everything else is again, just gravy icing. Yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to take that too deep, but I mean, it’s not that somber of a subject to me.
Mike
Not here either. This show is founded on on many conversations like that. We want we want to go all the way in. Go all the way in. I feel like for me, these days, all roads lead to parenting because I’m a new dad to a nine month old, also a boy dad. So I’m, you know, a few years behind you. And it’s interesting, as I hear you talk about your mortality, talk about money. I have thought a lot the last nine months about what am I modeling. I mean, he’s preverbal, my son, and he’s not like, you know, “Dad has conflicting beliefs and he’s acting incongruently.” He’s obviously not quite there yet, but it won’t be very long until he’s there. “Dad, you said this and you’re doing that. What’s going on there?”
Derek Sivers
Right.
Mike
So with parenting. And I’ve heard you speak, I’ve read a little bit. I’ve heard you speak a little bit about parenting the way that you’re kind of like a fellow adventurer with your child. And I think a lot these days about what are the guideposts that I want to create in my family. Like what type of behaviors do I want to model. So this is a broad-- I guess we’re moving the projection screen from money into parenting, you know, two pretty big things. How do you look at, like are there certain behaviors that you think are are especially important to model as a parent? I guess just walk us through how you look at parenting at a high level first and we can zoom in.
Derek Sivers
High level it is a reaction to the individual kid. I only have one. But it’s amazing to me that parents who have two kids, almost always their two kids, are vastly different personalities, even though they were raised almost identically relatively. And so it’s a nice reminder that there’s a lot of nature, not just nurture. And so I think a lot of parenting is just what this kid needs right now. It’s being open to that. Not coming in with some dogmatic, “This is what all parenting must be.” But just responding to each kid’s needs. So for my kid, for my situation yeah, I came into it with some core things. Like for example, at its core, I think that he’s the leader and I’m the follower. He is having an amazing experience of childhood and I’m just there as like his sidekick. To help enable it, to help amplify the good stuff, to help steer it a little bit where I can just tell, maybe because I’m just taller that he would have a little more fun over there than he would over there. Then I’ll just steer him that way. And I mean that in the life sense as a metaphor for, like, you know let’s just say video games, for example. Yeah you could just sit here and play video games, but I know that you will be eventually more deeply fulfilled by turning off the video game. Or let’s find something that’s more interesting than the video game over here. I can see that from my height, from my long term view that the video game I know it’s tempting, but you’ll have more fun over here. So I’ll steer him that way. But for the most part he’s the leader, I’m the follower, and I’m just his loving sidekick there to make sure he has a great time.
Mike
Yeah. It’s a it sounds like a nice cocktail of wisdom and humility, right. Like there’s certain things that you’re able to impart because of your lived experience like that. There’s healthier ways to be engaged than to play video games all the time. And your child is unique and that’s going to be a challenge.
Derek Sivers
Yeah. How old are you now?
Mike
I’m 33 and he’s nine months.
Derek Sivers
Okay. I didn’t have a kid till I was 42. And I’m thankful for that because if I would have had a kid at 33, I probably would have been a pretty bad dad because I was completely wrapped up in running my company. I was obsessed, I was monomaniacal for ten years. From the age of 29 to 38, I had my head down and was focused on one thing only, 7 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week. No social life, no vacations. I was massively obsessed with my company. That’s all I did for ten years of my life. It wasn’t until I sold the company at age 38. I lifted my head up and looked around and traveled the world a bit. Went to Singapore and had a baby, and then I was able to give him my full attention very selflessly. I think that’s my number one psychological challenge, is whenever I’m on duty, I just have to shut down all of my own desires and needs and whatever, and just hit the pause button on everything I’m thinking of and doing and just give him my full attention, knowing that I can unpause that button when he goes to sleep or goes to school, or his mom takes him out or whatever. So whenever I’m on duty, meaning whenever he wakes up in the morning or comes home from school or whatever. That’s it everything else pauses. I give him my full and absolute attention until it’s time for bed or whatever like I said. That would have been much harder to do while I was running my company, I would have been majorly conflicted. And I think that probably the company would have suffered or I just would have put it in different hands and I would have been just the owner.
Derek Sivers
Because ultimately I think that your kid’s life is the most important thing for you, because it has so many knock on effects. That if your kid grows up healthy and flourishing with an amazing mental attitude and an empowered, smart view of the world they can do so much good for like millions of people, because then they’ll pass that on to their kids and grandkids. We’ll have that in all these knock on effects for generations are all dependent on you being a good dad right now, like your little fucking record store is not as important as the knock on effects of being a good dad right now. So sometimes I forget that actually, right before he was born or right before we got pregnant, I had actually just started a new company that I was starting to throw all my attention into, and I was really upset when his mom told me she was pregnant. I went, “What? No. We agreed. No kids. No.” And I was like, “But I just started this company. I’m doing other things. I want to travel the whole world. I have, like, all these things I want to do. No.” And I just kind of resigned to myself, like, “All right, well, fuck, I’m gonna have a kid now.” And I had some months to adjust to that. You know, it’s a good thing that pregnancy lasts nine months. It gives you some time to adjust. So by the time he was born, I was ready to give him my full attention, but I was not ready nine months earlier. And, yeah, I was definitely not ready ten years earlier.
Mike
Well, I have a few specific follow ups, and one is maybe to just give more context. I know that when you say present, you’re specifically saying like no cell phone. He’s your full, undivided attention, right? Like there’s no electronics. You’re just there with him.
Derek Sivers
Yeah.
Mike
I did a three month leave with my son when he was roughly not exactly, but four months old to six months old. And I found it-- wait. Sorry.
Derek Sivers
Wait, sorry. When you say leave, what do you mean?
Mike
From work, I was totally unplugged from my professional life in any way.
Derek Sivers
Cool.
Mike
And I found it really, really hard. Like putting my own needs aside was very-- I found myself wrapped up in loneliness. My professional ambition is still really strong. I’m wondering how you’re able to-- you know, we’ve spoken at some length today and I know this about you. Like you’re really driven to create and you are able to for years work from 7 a.m. to 12 a.m.. How are you able to practically, in a practical way, shut it off? You’ve logged you have it up on your website somewhere, the thousands and thousands and thousands of hours that you’ve spent really just being a dad. How are you able to actually maintain presence? And not even if I remove all of the distractions, like sold all my TVs. I rarely use my TVs.
Derek Sivers
All my TVs. What’s that Mike?
Mike
Two. But, yeah, you see what I’m getting at. Like, if I just remove any distraction, even toys, if I was just, like, there with him, no cell phone, that my mind would still be in a thousand other places.
Mike
How are you able to really be there with with your son and vice versa? Like when you leave your son be able to just focus on your writing or focus on the time that you’re spending with me.
Derek Sivers
Right.
Derek Sivers
Okay. Two answers. For one, it’s just short sprints. I don’t know if I could do the truly single parent with no help thing. Those parents that are just with their kid from 6 a.m. to midnight or let’s say whatever, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week, months and years on end with no help. That would be really, really hard on me. That would need a life size pause. That would be like, all right, all of my needs are paused for years now. I don’t know if I could do that. In fact, I probably wouldn’t. Also, I think that kid would need to be around other grown ups. So I think I would just find a way to, you know, even if I had to borrow money, I would pay somebody to come also be fully present with my kid for half a day, every day or something. So I would only do short sprints. So let’s just say, for example, a real world example when he was a baby. I’m a morning person, so whenever he would have that first cry of the morning, you know, he’d be asleep and I’d be the one to get up at 5:30 in the morning, you know, give him a bottle, change his diaper, do that, and then we’d go outside. That’s number two. I’ll get to that in a second. We’d go outside and and play until 9 a.m., and then that’s when I’d like give him back to mama.
Derek Sivers
And now she’s on duty from 9 to 5. And I would go do my thing in a separate location. I’d go give my work my full attention. No distractions, because I don’t have time for this shit. I can’t get distracted. I can’t be reading social media. No, I only got eight hours. I have to fit all my life’s goals into eight hours. 5:00, I’d come home and she’d be exhausted. She’d go, “Here.” And I’m back on duty from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m. or whatever, when he’d go to sleep. So that’s one way and then every Saturday. By the way, I would just take him all day long. So 6 a.m. until 8 p.m.. So Saturday was like my big long pause day. I do nothing but like 14 hours of being with my boy. So that’s one thing that I do in short sprints. So I don’t think I could do it, what you just said like three months of leave. I’ve never had to pause my work for more than a week. The most extreme is if like, I take him on a holiday somewhere and it’s just me and him in a foreign country. And then even then I get maybe like when he goes to sleep a little before me luckilly. And so I’d get like an hour of work after he goes to sleep.
Derek Sivers
So I don’t mean that I’m pausing my whole life, it’s just when he’s around, so I am still doing my things. Luckily, I’m a morning person, so I tend to wake up at like 4:30 or 5 and I’ll do my thing for like two hours before he wakes up in the morning. And even if we’re together all day long, then I do my thing for another hour or two after he goes to sleep at night. And I’m very thankful that I don’t need a lot of sleep. Okay, so number two, is I would do things or take him places that were fun for me too. So I am so thankful that we moved to New Zealand when he was born. So we were living in Singapore when he was born. He was born in Singapore, and when he was nine months old, we made this family decision that we want him to grow up in New Zealand. And I had just been living in urban centres for ten years straight. And so to suddenly have like an eight month old baby just about to learn to walk and have just arrived in New Zealand. It meant that I was thrilled for the next six years to spend all of our playtime just outside. Just every day we would just walk out to the park or down to the river or up to the top of this hill. I’d put him in one of those baby backpacks, and we’d go up to the top of the hill and we’d go out and we’d just like, just playing in nature.
Derek Sivers
And I was just personally thrilled. There’s just so many moments of deep bliss of just going out to some forest or a beach in New Zealand with my boy that’s playing with some dead wood in the forest, or turning a stick into a sword. And I’m just sitting there like, “Oh God, I love my life. Look at this forest. Oh my God, this is so gorgeous.” And I can’t imagine what it would be like if I was just in an apartment in Columbus, Ohio, with some stupid kids shows playing out of the TV, and I’m just sitting in some apartment feeling trapped, and there’s nothing beautiful for an hour in any direction. Trying to raise a kid that way, I don’t think I would like that. And so maybe that’s why it’s just like I made the decision. Like, okay, I’m going to tap into some of my savings now. I could stay here in Singapore and start a new company and make money, but oops, I’m having a kid now, so I’m making that family decision. I’m going to go to a place that is more nature. It’s going to be less income, less career opportunity, but it’s going to be a more enjoyable place to give my kid my full attention. That was the trade off.
Mike
Well another follow up that I was thinking about here. Those are really beautiful, and I love the imagery of just being outside and looking at parenting as a kind of-- if you look at it as being co-pilots, you’re doing things that are fun for both of you, right? And not just, “Oh, I’m inside and watching, you know, Miss Rachel or whatever else.”
Derek Sivers
And sorry to interrupt, but sometimes I take that for granted so much that I almost forget. That doing it another way is an option, because when I talk about giving my kid my full attention, it’s a joyful thing. It’s the same way that people say, like, “I need a vacation. I’m going to unplug and go out to the countryside for a weekend.” And they talk about that as something that they’re doing to treat themselves. It’s like all of my time with my kid was a treat to myself because it was always like it’s 5:30 in the morning he just woke up. Or let’s just say it’s 7 a.m. he just woke up. I am shutting off my phone. As soon as I hear him cry, I shut off my phone completely. I power down the computer and scoop him up in my arms and get outside and go out into nature where it’s just me and him in a grassy field, you know, playing. And so it is something I’m doing for myself at the same time. Yes.
Mike
Yeah. Well, as far as I know, I don’t have many or any listeners in Columbus, Ohio, but I think that--
Derek Sivers
Sorry, Columbus.
Mike
Choice point. No, like one thing that’s been on my mind as a lingering curiosity is that, you know, we’ve gone through various different chapters of your life here, and you’ve made lots of really big choices that have really big implications. Where to live, selling a company. And I was, you know, the tie into Columbus, Ohio here is that, you know, someone is listening from Columbus and let’s just make up a scenario. You know, they’re working a job that pays enough, but they don’t have the internal belief that I can take care of myself, that I got enough, I am enough. They’ve got one child. They’re listening to the different chapters that you’ve had in your life. I would look at you almost as a black belt in this way now. That you know, you’ve reinvented yourself several times over in terms of where you live, what your career is. So if you were explaining to the white belt and, you know, I’m in Hoboken, new Jersey, I’m in some ways a little bit of a white belt or the white belt that’s in Columbus, Ohio. About how you look at these big choice points of, I’m going to start a family, I’m going to I’m going to switch careers. How have you been informed around making those big choices? Or put another way, what have been your guideposts?
Derek Sivers
I might be starting. No, let me remove might. I’m starting from a viewpoint that says that I want to have a full life before I die. I want to pack in a wide variety of experiences. I want to be on my deathbed going, “Wow, I did a lot. I am feeling okay to be done. Because I packed in so much living, such a big variety of things.” Sorry for a quick tangent loop.
Mike
Go ahead.
Derek Sivers
It actually explains why I like seeing the world from different points of view deliberately. Somebody was trying to be philosophical with me doing this kind of absolute moral philosophy where they were like the whole, would you pull the lever to kill one person instead of leaving the lever that’s going to kill five. You know, that little moral, philosophy thing, like. Yeah would you take an action, tell.
Mike
Would you kill one person that you know or risk the chance of-- maybe I’m getting it backwards, right. Like, would you pull the trigger and kill ten people you don’t know or one person you know?
Derek Sivers
Right. So whatever that is, then he said, so I gave some answer and he said, “Okay, now what if you’re in a hospital and you have the ability to do it and you can do this, and by taking the organs out of one person, then five people will live. What would you do then?” And I said, “In that case I would do the opposite.” And he said, “Ah, see, see, you’re you’re morally incongruent. You’re convicted.” I said, “No, I’m aware of my choices, but I want to live a full life. And so I would deliberately see how it feels to do it each way. I would choose 1 in 1 option and whatever I chose the first time, I would do the opposite the next time, so that I could experientially feel how it is to do both instead of presupposing.” And he just looked at me like, “No, but that’s wrong.” No, we’re doing a different value system here. I’m making choices that give me a fuller life. So walking away from a city of opportunity. I was living in San Francisco, which I think is, you know, the city of ginormous opportunity. And I left it to go to India, which was a place for more personal experience for me.
Derek Sivers
And then later I was living in Singapore. I had just started a new business. I was in the middle of the entrepreneur scene. It was exciting. It was interesting for me personally. And then my wife said, she’s pregnant. And I went, “Oh, well, then let’s do something very different and move to the middle of nowhere in New Zealand so that I could just raise a baby in nature and just fuck everything I was doing. Never mind. I’m just going to do this now.” I make these choices that seem extreme because damn, it gives me an interesting life to have taken these big, bold leaps, even if it doesn’t work out. There are some things that I thought I would love that I didn’t, and I tried some extreme thing. Whether it was doing a company or not doing a company or moving here or doing this or doing that. I went, “Oh, I thought I would like this, but I don’t.” But even then, I’m glad that I had that experience because it gives me a fuller life. Like I tried that. That’s a great feeling. So I do make a lot of my life choices by this measure: What would give me a fuller life of experience?
Mike
That is awesome. I really admire that about you. This might seem like a random segue, but it just popped in and I’m going to honor--
Derek Sivers
Wait, wait. Okay, remember that segue. But remember how we said, I started with my story of being in the circus and the married couple, that was my bosses at the circus, that they were living for free in the attic of an arts center. That also helps to shape the way I see the world. As that there are creative solutions, that you don’t have to be rich to to do these things. You can ask around and find people with spare houses that they’re not using or maybe they need house sitters. I met a woman once. I think you can find her online under “Boss Meggan”. Meggan Kaiser, that’s her name. She goes around the world looking for people that need house sitters or pet sitters, and travels the whole world this way. And just does a random odd jobs just to pay for her airfare so she can get to a place or housesitting for free. And she’s traveled the whole world kind of as a break even for free, just by housesitting and finding opportunities like this. I think there are always these creative solutions to get what you want. You don’t have to buy a boat. There’s somebody with a boat that needs it cleaned. And you could say, you know what, “I’ll clean your boat for free if you let me take it out. Sure, mate.” Whatever, you know. So there are creative solutions to live these different lifestyles. So sorry I interrupted your segue. I just wanted to say that somebody could be listening to this going. “Yeah, easy for you to say, rich boy.” You know? And of course, you know, I’ve said, yes, I’m rich, lucky me. But it’s not the only way.
Mike
I think I’m going to get back to the segue after, because now that example sparked something for me, which is, you’ve never really identified as a spiritual person, is that correct? No?
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Not recently, I did 15 years ago.
Mike
Interesting. Okay. Well, there seems to be a foundation of I don’t know if you would want to call it’s a combination or you know, these are my projections interpretations, resourcefulness, trust, creativity, and I’m wondering if any or all of those resonate with you, and what combination would you say was a neat or learned within your immediate young family or surroundings? And what amount would you say was cultivated as a skill? Coming as someone who, if I reveal myself a little bit here, is aspiring much more to take chances in pursuit of living more fully. Who has not learned or internalized, had the realization that life is going to provide if I take the leap, then either something great will happen or the mistake will be a really valuable lesson learned. You know that type of thing.
Derek Sivers
Okay. I don’t have a spiritual belief that the world will provide. But I do have a self-belief that I know how to provide value to the world, that others will reciprocate because I’ll be giving them value in return. So. I know that there are things I know how to do that other people find valuable, whether it’s singing a song or programming a computer. That maybe people would be willing to pay for, or maybe people would be willing to let me stay in their house for free for a while or feed me in return for a great story. That’s not a trust in the universe. I think it’s just a practical, realistic look at the transactional nature or the fulfillment that people get out of giving. Have you been to the Middle East?
Mike
No, I haven’t.
Derek Sivers
I hadn’t yet either until last year. And I went to United Arab Emirates for the first time, and I discovered hospitality like you’ve never known it before. This deeply ingrained cultural value on hosting and giving generously is so, so deeply ingrained in Arab culture that it’s like considered a great honor to give to the guest. And it was so touching to experience. But I realized that even though that culture has taken it to an extreme. A lot of people have that joy and fulfillment out of feeling like a good, generous person. And if I can be a good person in return and be a good reciprocal friend, be a good listener or be a good storyteller, or be a good whatever that I can provide enough joy for somebody so that they feel joy in return for giving to me. You know, so none of this is spiritual. It’s not saying the universe or it’s not saying God. It’s saying, well, people will provide. And then psychologically if I know how to hold a belief system that needs very little. Then I’m happy to sleep on somebody’s couch and find joy in a book and the two pieces of clothing I have or whatever. Or just the joy and just sitting with my kid in a field and a peanut butter sandwich that we’ve got for the day, that’s enough, that I don’t need to spend $1,000 to make my kid happy today. Then that’s strength and resilience in myself. So, no my spirituality has nothing to do with it. It’s not trust in the universe. It’s an understanding of people and how the world works.
Mike
And I feel like the roads kind of lead to the same thing, which is a really beautiful outcome. And jus a clarification for the--
Derek Sivers
And Mike so you know, the reason I have an open email inbox is for this reason that we’re just describing. I’ve never said this publicly directly before, but people say you’re crazy, you give your email address to the world. I’m like, “Yes, because I make these connections.” And the reason when I went to United Arab Emirates for the first time last year, I had booked a hotel room that was like $400 a night, and I looked up one friend that lives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that emailed me once and said, “Hey, I’m going to be in UAE. Will you be around?” And he goes, “My friend, cancel your hotel. You’re going to stay at my home in the Burj Khalifa.” And I went, “Really?” I said, “Yeah, it would be great to see you.” He goes, “No, I won’t be there.” He said, “My uncle will pick you up from the airport. He’ll give you the keys to my home. Stay as long as you want. My home is your home. Just stay.” And suddenly I’m staying at a place in the Burj Khalifa that would be like $2,000 a night for anybody else. But I’m staying there for free because I had an interesting conversation with this guy once that liked an article I wrote. And I’m like, “Well, that’s life.” That was beautiful. And so all because I have this open email inbox where I want people from the world to say hello, and vice versa. There have been people that come to stay at my house in New Zealand because they emailed me years ago. I like that. I like making these connections, we help each other out. And it’s just great to know people from around the world too. I love it, it’s one of my biggest joys is my email inbox.
Mike
I find it incredibly generous of you. It’s the reason that we’re having this conversation right now is that you take the time to respond to every email. So yeah, there’s a loop that I wanted to close that has absolutely--
Derek Sivers
Yeah. Sorry I’ve cut you off twice now.
Mike
I love it. Really I created this show so that the guests can shine and that I can learn. And I’ve learned a lot from you, and I’m learning a lot from you in the time that we’re spending together here. But for the people that know that I’ve been to Israel, who have been sitting around for now, 15 minutes going, “What, Mike, you have been to the Middle East, you’ve been to Israel.” Want to close that loop. I’ve been to Israel. I did birthright, I was in Israel for ten days. I loved being in Israel.
Derek Sivers
Nice. When were you there?
Mike
I was there in 2013, which is when I graduated college. I went the summer. It was actually right around this time, 11 years ago.
Derek Sivers
Wow. Yeah. Did you go to Tel Aviv or where were you?
Mike
Yeah, yeah, I went. So I’m Jewish and I went on the trip is called Birthright. So it’s a ten day paid for trip. And we went we went north to south, so I went pretty much everywhere. But we made a pit stop in Tel Aviv. I would love to go back, at a time that probably makes a little bit more sense than currently.
Derek Sivers
I’d love to live there. I want to live in Jerusalem. That’s near the top of my list of places I would love to live someday. Jerusalem is such an interesting place.
Mike
You sure you’re not a spiritual man, Derek?
Derek Sivers
Yeah, well. Okay. There was an interesting thing that happened while. Okay, by the way, I’ve been to Israel twice. The first time I fell in love with Jerusalem was ten years ago or something. And I was just back there a few months ago. Late September, just two weeks before the Gaza, October 7th thing happened, and I spent a week or ten days or mostly in Tel Aviv, in Jaffa. And it’s interesting that so many people say about Jerusalem, like, “Oh, this place, it has a power. It has a magic. You know, I moved here because this power of this place is just you know, tangible. You can just feel the power of this place.” And I did all of the stuff and went to all of the places that people say are powerful and it has no power over me because I wasn’t raised with those stories. But yet you put me in Hollywood or Union Square, Manhattan or London’s West End. And I’m like, “Ooh, this place has a power. This is where the best things in the world are made. This is where the greatest creations of thought have been made in these places. Oh my God, you can feel the energy of this place.” But of course, it’s the same bullshit, I project meaning into Manhattan, into London’s West End, into Hollywood, in the same way that people are projecting a meaning into Jerusalem. Because they grow up with these stories.
Derek Sivers
They’re just suddenly they’re like, “Oh my God, this is the place. Oh my God, it’s the Wailing Wall. This is it. This place has so much meaning. This is the Wailing Wall.” But it’s like, well, it’s some rocks that you’ve heard stories about that I didn’t hear those stories. So I’m standing here at the Wailing Wall going, “It’s a wall. There’s some rocks.” And they go, “These are the rocks that held up Jesus’s cross.” I went, “Huh? All right.” Like I don’t feel any power, but yet I love Jerusalem. I mean, like I said, it’s really in my top five places I would love to live someday. Because it’s a fascinating place and partially fascinating because people put so much meaning into it. That I think objectively it’s a placebo. Because placebos work. If you really believe that this is a painkiller, and in fact, this is the best painkiller known to man and it’s very expensive. It’s $100 per pill painkiller. But this is going to get rid of all your pain. You are more likely for your pain to go away. And you go, wow, it worked. And then, you know, later you find out it was a sugar pill. But placebos work on us and it’s the same thing with meanings. Mike’s search for meaning, that meanings are placebos. They actually do have a real powerful effect on us, even though they’re not real. They do really affect us.
Mike
Well, this is now the tangent is gone. We’re going to throw a funeral for the tangent. So I don’t know if this is still going to be a part of “Useful Not True”. But what this is reminding me of and this might be a good place to bring the conversation towards a close actually. Life is underscore. And there’s an elegant, well told story in there, I think that’s the part where you tell the story about the orchestra. And which instrument is the best. Right?
Derek Sivers
No, those are two separate chapters, but I’m glad you connected them.
Mike
Can you do both?
Derek Sivers
Sure, sure. Hey, sing that song for us. Yeah. Okay, so first I’ll say, I went to a worksho once, where the teacher wrote on the board, “Life is____” like a long underscore, like fill in the blank. And when we see that, because we grew up taking quizzes in school, it means you’re supposed to put something in that blank. So he wrote, life is underline, fill in the blank and then said, “We’re going to break for dinner now.” He said, “But when we get back. I’m going to tell you the meaning of life.” He said, “What do you think goes in that blank? Discuss this over dinner. I’ll see you back here in two hours.” And so at dinner, everybody at the dinner table, I was at a dinner with seven people, and they all had vastly different answers that everyone was really passionately convinced was the answer. Somebody is like, “Man, life is learning, man. Life is all about learning. This is the meaning of life is learning, you know. Here’s the reasons.” And somebody said, “No man, life is suffering. You know, I’ve been learning about Buddhism and life is suffering like that. Here’s why.” And somebody said, “You know, what? No, life is love. Love is the ultimate emotion. And life is all about love. The reason we’re here on earth is to love and to give.” And somebody said, “No, man, that’s bullshit. Life is time. Life is the time between when you’re born and when you die. So the definition of life is time, and that’s what life is.”
Derek Sivers
And somebody said, “Oh, life is DNA reproduction.” So. I’m usually talkative. But I sat quietly at this dinner going, “Wow, this is interesting.” The fact that all of them believe their answer so strongly, and they all disagree means that none of them can be the answer. The teacher is not going to come back and say, “In fact, this guy was right. Life is time. The rest of you are wrong.” That would never happen. So oh my god, maybe that underscore is the answer, that fill in the blank is the answer that life is fill in the blank. That everybody’s just projecting their own meaning onto this thing, and life itself has no meaning. It’s just a blank slate for you to put whatever you want onto. And I went, “Oh, that’s good. I wonder if that’s, what he’s going to say.” And we came back from dinner and sure enough yeah, that’s what he said. He started out easy. He said, “What is the meaning of this ceiling?” And somebody said, “It protects us.” Somebody said, “It holds up the walls or whatever.” And he said, “No, it’s just a ceiling. It has no meaning. It’s just a ceiling. Any meaning you give to it, that’s your own. You’re putting meaning into that ceiling.”
Derek Sivers
He said, “What does it mean that you’re here this weekend?” Somebody said, “I’m trying to improve myself.” Somebody said, “You know, being the best person I can be.” And he said, “No, that’s not what it means. That’s your meaning that you’re giving to you being here. So the fact is, you bought a ticket and you came here. That’s what happened. It has no meaning in itself. You’re giving this meaning.” He said, “All right, so what’s the meaning of life?” And now everybody’s like, “Oh, you know, life is suffering. Life is suffering. No, life is love. No life is learning.” And he goes, “No, that’s that’s your meaning.” He said, “Life itself has no meaning.” He said, “All right, so whatever DNA, atoms, you know, call it life. You’re here, you’re doing this thing, you’re breathing. Someday you won’t. That’s it.” He said, “If you give it meaning, that’s your meaning. It has no meaning. Life itself has no meaning.” And I was just beaming. I was like, “Oh, I love this.” And it’s funny that somebody later said, “But Derek, that’s nihilism. That’s horrible. That’s dark, that’s nihilism. You can’t think that nothing has meaning because that’s nihilism.” I went, “Okay, so you’re you’re telling me that me saying it has no meaning, means that it’s bad and means that it’s an ism that you’ve heard of and you’ve heard that that ism is bad.”
Derek Sivers
I was like, “I don’t know, that sounds like you’re just putting more meaning into it. To me, it’s just. There is what is? There are some concrete facts. I’m snapping my fingers right now. You can see my teeth. The corners of my mouth are up. I guess that that has some meaning to you, that I’m smiling. It has some meaning to you that I’m snapping my fingers. But not necessarily. You know, you’re projecting that.” Like, I think it’s beautiful to make this separation between the actual concrete facts like that’s a ceiling, you’re here at this event this weekend. You are alive. That’s just a fact. Doesn’t have to mean anything. Which means that any meaning you put into it, you can choose it. Even if your parents, your grandparents, your culture, your city, your friends, your media gave you some meaning and told you, “Mike, this is what this means.” You might have subscribed to it, but it’s beautiful to to wake up from the dream and go, “Oh, that’s that was just a dream. That was just some thoughts in my head. The actual fact is I’m sitting here in this chair right now, and that’s it.” And any meaning I want to put on this moment or this life is just projected and you get to choose it. And that’s the beautiful thing.
Mike
It really can. That you’re at choice. That you’re choosing the meaning to ascribe can be you, people might call that nihilism. It can be that’s one shape that it might take, but it also can be really empowering. Now, now we’re on to the what’s the best instrument, I think.
Derek Sivers
Oh, yeah. Sorry, sorry, I guess so.
Mike
This is a really great, great place to move to the end here, I think. And after you tell the story, maybe a couple of other questions. I’ve really enjoyed spending this time with you, though.
Derek Sivers
Thanks. What was his name? Stravinsky. Igor Stravinsky. It was 1960 in Los Angeles, was rehearsing his orchestra, and a girl that lived nearby kind of snuck into the orchestra and was watching for a while and watching all these instruments, and she was trying to pick which one was her favorite. Which one was the best instrument, you know, the clarinets or the cellos and the French horns and the timpani and the flutes. And so this little girl was brave enough when they took a break, she looked at the conductor and walked up to the conductor, which was Stravinsky. But she didn’t know that and said, “Excuse me, what’s the best instrument?” And the reason we know this story is because Robert Kraft, who was a journalist and author, was a friend of Stravinsky’s and often kind of hung around him writing his biography. And so this moment was captured that Stravinsky kind of looked down at this little girl, kind of amused, and decided to take up the challenge. So she said,”What’s the best instrument?” He said, “Ah, you know, there is no best instrument.” He said, “Everybody will argue that their instrument is the best.| He said, “That cellist is convinced that the cello is the best instrument, and the oboe is convinced that the oboe is the best and the two will never agree.” He said, “But that’s like philosophy, isn’t it? That’s like life.” He said, “The person that’s living for the moment is convinced that this is the way to be, and the person that’s living for the future is convinced that that’s the way to be.”
Derek Sivers
Then she said, “But what’s your favorite?” And he said, “Time.” He said, “With time I can play one instrument at one time and another instrument at another time. So you don’t have to choose. You can use time so that you can play them all.” And he said, “Just like life. The philosophies of life, you can live for the moment at one time in your life and live for the future at another time in your life, or like a composer, you can combine them. I can have the oboe and the viola playing at the same time, in the same way that you might be living for your children and making money at the same time. You combine them because you’re making money for your children. You can combine these philosophies.” And I just love that story. I love the metaphor of the orchestra, the instruments of the orchestra as a metaphor for the different philosophies that we could live our life by. And how, like a composer/conductor, you can choose to let them play at different times, you know, let the violin take a solo, and then the whole orchestra comes in and then stop. And now it’s just the flute and the French horn and let them play for a while. And if you think of that, of if you think of each instrument in the orchestra as a way to live.
Derek Sivers
That this is how we live, that you don’t need to pick one and say, this is the best. You don’t need to say the oboe is the best instrument. No, you could just let it play for a while in your life. You can say, “Okay, I’ve read Atomic Habits. I’m going to live some habits for a while. I’m not going to declare that this is the answer. This is the way this is an instrument I can now use because I’ve ingested this book and. I’m also going to take this stoicism thing I’ve been reading about and I’m going to do Atomic Habits in the morning and stoicism at night, or in fact, I’m going to combine them for a while right now. And then when my kid is one year old, we’re going to stop doing that and do something else.” I think it’s a beautiful metaphor. So in fact my whole book called “How to Live” ends with a diagram of an orchestra seating chart with 27 instruments in the orchestra, which matched the 27 chapters of How to Live, and that was the implied metaphor, is that when reading “How to Live”, people are tempted to want to pick one. To say, “Yes, but what is the right answer? What’s the way?” People have asked me after reading the book, “So, Derek, which is your favorite?” I say, “No, no, no, you’ve missed the whole point. The point is the orchestra. The point is to combine them or bring them in and out over time or combine them with others.”
Mike
This feels like a really good place to end for me. Is there anything that we haven’t spoken about that feels important to share as we bring it to a close here?
Derek Sivers
Haha. Email me anybody that made it through this amazing conversation that Mike just curated and brought out. I love this subject, and if you’re the kind of person that listened all the way to the end of this conversation and love it, we should meet. So go to my website sive.rs And email me. Say hello.
Mike
I’ll definitely make sure to link to that and I hope that people take you up on it. Really kind and generous of you. And it was really kind and generous of you to spend the last two hours with me. So thank you.
Derek Sivers
Oh, dude, sorry to call you out on that generous thing for a second. But like, I thought it was funny that when I talked about that, some dude in Dubai let me stay at his home in the Burj Khalifa for free. And you immediately said something about how generous of you. I was like, “No, no, no, hold on.” This is not generous. Like, I get so much out of this. This was about the best possible-- how long are you talking about two hours. This has been about the best possible use of two hours that I could have had today. This has been amazing. So I get a lot out of this. This has not been generous. And anybody listening to this, if you do email me, don’t think that I’m being generous by answering your email. It’s fucking cool to hear from people around the world. I love it, so I’m not being generous. You’re being generous to me if you introduce yourself to me because I love knowing people around the world, and then the knock on effects it has from us knowing each other. Thanks for a great conversation.
Mike
I fucking love that. Yeah. Right on. You’re very welcome. I won’t I won’t ever call you generous again.
Derek Sivers
Thank you. Finally.
Mike
Well, to everyone who did tune in for all the two hours here. I hope that you got a thing or 8 or 13 things from this conversation. There were a lot of gems, and I’m really excited for this upcoming book. Derek, I don’t know when is it going to be released in the. Oh yeah. Very soon.
Derek Sivers
Oh yeah, very soon. I’m probably finishing it in the next week or two. So yeah, it’s very soon. It’ll be on my website only, I have no great love for Amazon. So if you just go to my website, sivers.com, it will just be there for the first year or so.
Mike
And it will be “Useful Not True” subtext TBD. Is that right?
Derek Sivers
Yes. Yeah.
Mike
Well, thank you all for listening. Wishing you a wonderful rest of your day or evening and sending you lots of love. Thanks.